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Will Google’s Right To Be Forgotten Reach The USA?

Global Marketing News – 13th July 2015

Will Google’s right to be forgotten reach the USA?

The privacy group Consumer Watchdog is to file a complaint against Google to the US Federal Trade Commission.

The complaint will argue that rules similar to be “right to be forgotten” law in Europe should be introduced in the US.

The EU “right to be forgotten” law means that EU citizens can ask search engines to remove links to outdated or inaccurate information about them.

Consumer Watchdog is concerned about the fact that US citizens are not allowed to make such link removal requests to Google, despite the fact that the search giant claims care deeply about users’ privacy.

“Describing yourself as championing users’ privacy and not offering a key privacy tool – indeed one offered all across Europe – is deceptive behavior,” they have said.

Some commentators, however, have argued that it would be difficult to implement an EU-style “right to be forgotten” law in the US without changing the US constitution’s First Amendment, which protects the freedom of expression.

Facebook: Europeans wrong to use “right to be forgotten” on a national level

Facebook has said that European countries are wrong to use the “right to be forgotten” law on a national level.

The “right to be forgotten” ruling was made in 2014 and means that EU citizens can ask search engines to remove links to outdated or inaccurate information about them.

Since then, data security authorities from several European countries, including Belgium and the Netherlands, have used this law to probe Facebook’s privacy policies, arguing that the social media giant should be covered by the laws as well.

Facebook operates under a “one-stop-shop” approach, which means that the company is only subject to the law in the country in which it is physically based (in Facebook’s case, Ireland), rather than being subject to the laws of each individual country in which it operates.

Facebook believes that this existing model is the right one to follow, and has made the following comments regarding complaints from the Belgian and Dutch authorites: “There should be order within Europe and a single regulator that regulates you, not multiple regulators all trying to regulate everything in their own different ways.”

China’s censorship of its bloggers under scrutiny

The Financial Review has examined the Chinese government’s censorship of its bloggers as it attempts to gain total control over the internet in the country.

Last year, China made it a criminal offence to broadcast any defamatory content online. A perpetrator can face up to 3 years imprisonment if the information has been viewed by 5,000 people or re-posted 500 times.

The definition of information classed as “defamatory” is very wide-ranging, however, with simple criticism of the government falling into this category.

Wu Gan, an outspoken and popular Chinese blogger, was recently arrested for “inciting the subversion of state power” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”.

Commentators have said that such high profile arrests are designed to not only silence the individual bloggers but also to generate fear amongst other members of the blogging community and dissuade them from posting any content critical of the government regime.

Music company International Solutions launches in Australia and New Zealand

And finally, the global music promotion company International Solutions has just launched Australia and New Zealand.

International Solutions, which also has offices in Europe and the US, will offer international project management, label and management representation and also single, album, tour, video, TV, radio and online promotion.

International Solutions has said it is excited to be launching in the region, saying: “With the opening of our Melbourne based Australian office we can now offer a global promotion and marketing service to all Australian and New Zealand clients enabling them to have boots on the ground in the US and Europe.”

Victoria Ciesiolka from Alpha Entertainment has been announced as the Territory Manager.

Gemma Houghton

Gemma has been working in international search for 6 years and leads Webcertain's marketing team. As well as managing Webcertain’s global online and offline marketing activities, she also organises and programs WebCertain's International Search Summit, a search marketing conference focusing on international and multilingual online marketing and contributes regularly to the Webcertain blog. She has also spoken at conferences such as SES and SasCon and writes regularly for State of Digital. Gemma holds a Professional Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a BA Joint Honors Degree in French and German.